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Building Circularity into our Economies through Sustainable Procurement

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Building Circularity into our Economies through Sustainable Procurement
Type: Research
Year: 2018
Language: English
The power of institutional purchasing

The UN Sustainable Development Goals have reiterated the strong link between environmental protection, sustainable development and public procurement. In fact, one of the targets under the Sustainable Development Goal 12 on sustainable consumption and production patterns focuses specifically on the promotion of “public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities”. The advancement of sustainable public procurement is thus recognized as being a key strategic component of the global efforts towards achieving more sustainable consumption and production patterns.

This document aims to introduce the role that sustainable procurement can play to accelerate the transition to a circular economy and the shift towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production, based on the work conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme in this field and on the experience documented by partners and governments. The document intends to inform dialogues on how best to bring more circularity in our economies at global level; it is addressed to both public procurers and policy makers, as well as corporate buyers and business leaders.